In manufacturing electronic devices such as semiconductor devices, patterns are formed using an imprint method.
For example, a pattern composed of a resin material is formed on a substrate by dripping the resin material in a liquid state on the substrate and curing the resin material while a template formed with the pattern (also referred to as an imprint mold or the like) is pressed against the resin material.
Here, when forming the pattern using the imprint method, the resin material is made to remain between a convex portion of the template and the substrate. A thickness of a film (residual film) composed of this remaining resin material is called a residual film thickness (RLT).
If a residual film thickness dimension fluctuates, a processing condition of a process at a post-process (for example, an etching process using the pattern composed of the resin material as a mask) comes to fluctuate, which makes it difficult to apply a high-precision process on a foundation layer of the pattern composed of the resin material.
Because of this, a technique has been proposed that measures a distance between a convex portion of the template and the substrate using a laser interferometer and controls the residual film thickness dimension based on a measured value.
However, development of a technique that can control the residual film thickness dimension with higher precision is desired.